Casey Anthony – More Juror Auditions

As court wrapped-up Friday evening, a total of 8 men and women had passed the initial voir dire questioning. The defense has used one of their ten peremptory challenges. Although these eight passed muster, either side has the ability to back-challenge. Judge Perry needs a panel of 12 and he will still need 8 more as alternates.

Should the State or defense exercise any of their peremptory challenges, Judge Perry will ‘back-fill’ the first 12 slots before proceeding with the alternates.

Casey is smiling and chatting with Dot. She is dressed rather shabbily, today – kinda a Ruth Buzzi look minus the purse and hair net.

We begin the day trying to eliminate the obvious hardship cases first.

The first few folks have possible hardship issues and to a one, have already formed an opinion as to Casey’s guilt! Guess they did some thinking in the past few days! So, this group is going quite quickly.

What is interesting is as each person said they believed Casey was guilty, she didn’t even flinch!

The next gentleman, 1407, passes muster and Linda Burdick proceeds with questioning regarding pretrial publicity. Baez is up next and it appears after the spanking Judge Perry gave the defense last night, they are limiting questions only related to jury selection!

We move onto death penalty and LWOP.

Jeff Ashton has a few questions and finishes quickly. ‘Finney’ is up and doing her usual long-winded presentation and questioning.

At this point, even I could play her role!

What makes it hard to sit through Finnell is it’s like she’s reading from a script. While everybody is pretty much asking the same questions of the prospective jurors, the rest at least mix it up a bit!

Finally we move onto general voir dire.

State has no challenges, defense wants the juror released for cause for age, ‘the court tried to rehabilitate’… Judge Perry says, Mr. Baez you can’t ask misleading questions. Second issue from defense, he lied on the questionnaire for being busted for a small amount of smoke – he was released! He misrepresented his criminal background.

Judge denies motion to excuse for cause – defense doesn’t want to use a peremptory challenge.

As Judge returns from break, Baez want to approach on the last juror!

1392 is called in. He knows a little about the case, but hasn’t formed an opinion. This gentleman may have a financial hardship. He believes the juror payment should be sufficient to cover his needs. Frank George asks if after questioning would he like to take a bit of time to figure out his finances. The juror agrees he would like to do that.

He heard Nancy Grace mention something about Casey pushing pencils around and flipping her hair while he was channel surfing. He mentioned on Facebook he had jury duty and apparently his friends may have figured out it was this case. It is becoming clear the State knows he violated court orders!

He posted the Court’s written instructions on Facebook and the State found it as well as his responses to questions on Wednesday night. He even posted, ‘book coming soon, I already have a title and cover’! He claims it was a joke and said nothing specific about the case.

State challenges for cause, for violation of Court order. Defense has no objections. Juror excused for cause.

What a total waste of time!

1394 is called. She had lost a son who died in a car crash. She remember the amount of time she and her husband spent with investigators and Casey lying to LE when the child was missing tipped the scales for her and makes her assume guilt. She doesn’t believe she could put that aside at trial.

She is released for cause.

The next person, 1361, has a financial hardship and is released for cause.

They actually are a bit ahead today! Next jurors are scheduled come in at 12:30 – it is 11:10 – and they are free til then. Perry wants 15 vetted and then he will swear them in. Both sides can back strike up until they are sworn.

To me it appears that the Defense continually drags the questioning out. Finnell is driving me nuts with her LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOng pauses and the “Do you understand” Like she is teaching some sort of class. UGH! With this sort of questioning I am afraid they may not get a jury before Tuesday!!! Thanks for the great report!

“She is dressed rather shabbily, today – kinda a Ruth Buzzi look minus the purse and hair net.” Good one!

donchais

05/15/2011 at 8:57 am

Thanks shyloh! Yeah, Finney has really gotten to me more than anyone else.
I don’t see the trial till the end of next week if then.

Interestingly, yesterday it became real apparent that the defense has stepped up the attempt to stall. Baez started telling jurors points of law about the trial and asking jurors if they could follow directions. Judge Perry even nailed him once for misleading a juror on law. Baez wasn’t doing that in general voir dire before!